made
his son a bow as low in return. His face was suddenly solemn and
impressive, which gave him a positively malignant look. Dmitri bowed
generally to all present, and without a word walked to the window with his
long, resolute stride, sat down on the only empty chair, near Father
Paissy, and, bending forward, prepared to listen to the conversation he
had interrupted.

Dmitri's entrance had taken no more than two minutes, and the conversation
was resumed. But this time Miuesov thought it unnecessary to reply to
Father Paissy's persistent and almost irritable question.

"Allow me to withdraw from this discussion," he observed with a certain
well-bred nonchalance. "It's a subtle question, too. Here Ivan
Fyodorovitch is smiling at us. He must have something interesting to say
about that also. Ask him."

"Nothing special, except one little remark," Ivan replied at once.
"European Liberals in general, and even our liberal dilettanti, often mix
up the final results of socialism with those of Christianity. This wild
notion is, of course, a characteristic feature. But it's not only Liberals
and dilettanti who mix up socialism and Christianity, but, in many cases,
it appears, the police--the foreign police, of course--do the same. Your
Paris anecdote is rather to the point, Pyotr Alexandrovitch."

"I ask your permission to drop this subject altogether," Miuesov repeated.
"I will tell you instead, gentlemen, another interesting and rather
characteristic anecdote of Ivan Fyodorovitch himself. Only five days ago,
in a gathering here, principally of ladies, he solemnly declared in
argument that there was nothing in the whole world to make men love their
neighbors. That there was no law of nature that man should love mankind,
and that, if there had been any love on earth hitherto, it was not owing
to a natural law, but simply because men have believed in immortality.
Ivan Fyodorovitch added in parenthesis that the whole natural law lies in
that faith, and that if you were to destroy in mankind the belief in
immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of
the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be
immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannibalism. That's not all. He
ended by asserting that for every individual, like ourselves, who does not
believe in God or immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately be
changed into the exact contrary of the former religious law, an